November 18, 2018 has come and gone and I can’t believe that my five year anniversary date with the Classics Club has come around so quickly! It seems like only a year or so ago I was compiling my list and wondering how I was going to read so many books. So how did I do with it? Well, here’s what I accomplished ….
First of all, I went completely overboard and instead of choosing the recommended 50 books, I chose 170 books! Eh, not particularly my most wise decision, especially considering the content of some of them. Needless to say, I didn’t finish my list but, on a brighter note I did manage to read 66 of them, which is better than 50. I also had a few of them (The Histories, Paradise Lost, Metamorphoses, Hamlet and History of the Peloponnesian War come quickly to mind) where I posted by chapter/book/act, so that was a big task in itself and expanded my reading time. I’ve also started Bleak House, City of God, Crime and Punishment and Dead Souls from my original list, I just didn’t finish in time. 🙁
So here is my first Classics Club list, which I will call complete!
My list:Ancients (5000 B.C. – A.D. 400): (9 books read)
The Odyssey – Homer (end of the 8th century B.C.) March 23, 2014
The Histories (450 – 420 B.C.) – Herodotus (because I love my Greeks!) April 17, 2017
The History of the Pelopponesian War (431 B.C.) – Thucydides (a very
interesting war. I can’t wait to get Thucydides viewpoint) June 15, 2017
Oedipus Rex (429 B.C.) – Sophocles (Sophocles is one of my favourite
Greek playwrights) May 25, 2014
Oedipus at Colonus (406 B.C.) – Sophocles June 24, 2014
Antigone (441 B.C.) – Sophocles December 28, 2014
Apology (after 399 B.C.) – Plato December 12, 2013
Defense Speeches (80 – 63 B.C.) – Marcus Tullius Cicero (I’ve started this
and love it!) August 20, 2014
Metamorphoses (8) – Ovid (I will finish this!) March 31, 2016
Medieval/Early Renaissance (400 – 1600 A.D.): (6 books read)
The Rule of Saint Benedict (529)? – Saint Benedict December 2, 2015
me but I must overcome!) November 15, 2015
The Book of Margery Kempe (1430) – Margery Kempe August 1, 2014
Le Morte d’Arthur (1485) – Thomas Mallory (this read is coming up soon!) December 6, 2014
Utopia (1516) – Thomas More (looking forward to reading a good Utopian
novel) December 15, 2014
Selected Essays (1580) – Michel de Montaigne November 30, 2015Late Renaissance/Early Modern (1600 – 1850 A.D.): (17 books read)
Romeo and Juliet (1591 – 1595) – William Shakespeare October 13, 2014
Richard II (1595) – William Shakespeare November 30, 2014
Henry IV Part I (1597) – William Shakespeare December 21, 2014
Henry IV Part II (1596 – 1599) – William Shakespeare December 24, 2014
Henry V (1599) – William Shakespeare June 22, 2016
Othello (1603) – William Shakespeare October 28, 2014
Hamlet (1603 – 1604) – William Shakespeare January 27, 2015
King Lear (1603 – 1606) – William Shakespeare December 3, 2014
Paradise Lost (1667) – John Milton (time to use my guide by C.S. Lewis) February 27, 2014
Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – Jonathan Swift (I wonder if I’ll like it) January 3, 2015
Candide (1759) – Voltaire March 21, 2014
Sense and Sensibility (1811) – Jane Austen January 25, 2015
Persuasion (1818) – Jane Austen (I have read every other Austen novel but
this one. For shame!) February 21, 2015
Eugene Onegin (1825 – 1832) – Alexander Pushkin December 1, 2013 & February 8, 2014
The Pickwick Papers (1836 – 1837) – Charles Dickens (a fun read!) November 5, 2017
Wuthering Heights (1847) – Emily Brönte February 1, 2014
David Copperfield (1850) – Charles Dickens January 15, 2014
Modern (1850 – Present): (34 books read)
Villette (1853) – Charlotte Brönte March 31, 2016
The Warden (1855) – Anthony Trollope (looking forward to starting The
Barchestershire Chronicles) April 8, 2014
Madam Bovary (1856) – Gustave Flaubert (just because) April 4, 2014
Barchester Towers (1857) – Anthony Trollope August 7, 2014
Framely Parsonage (1860 – 1861) – Anthony Trollope December 8, 2016
Fathers and Sons (1862) – Ivan Turgenev September 19, 2014
War and Peace (1869) – Leo Tolstoy (going on and on and on ……) August 3, 2014
Erewhon (1872) – Samuel Butler May 16, 2015
La Curée (1871 – 1872) – Emile Zola (continuing the Rougon-Macquart
series) April 23, 2014
novels but should include one.) June 23, 2016
The Brothers Karamazov (1880) – Fyodor Dostoevsky (I can’t wait for this
one!) November 10, 2016
The Black Arrow (1888) – Robert Louis Stevenson November 20, 2013
L’Argent (1891) – Emile Zola August 21, 2015
Dracula (1897) – Bram Stoker (scary ….. not my favourite genre) October 19, 2015
The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) – G.K. Chesterton (love Chesterton!) August 20, 2014
confirm that I despise it) January 2, 2014
Mrs. Dalloway (1925) – Virginia Woolf January 13, 2014
The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933) – C.S. Lewis (I think this is a more simpler
Lewis) {No – this was incredibly complex!} November 30, 2013
Out of the Silent Planet (1938) – C.S. Lewis (love his Space Trilogy – a re-
Where do I go from here …..?? I’m going to condense my original list to 66 and roll many of the ones I didn’t read into my second list. Which I’m going to keep to 50. See! I do learn by experience!! Stayed tuned for the second list which I’ll post soon!
I am jealous of our ambition and achievement. My reading remains hit and miss. In any case, I just dropped by to tell you that I have resurrected myself from the ash heap of blogging, with a new address for a new blog, and I look forward to seeing what you do with your new blog in the coming weeks and months. Best wishes from an old goat on the Gulf coast.
https://beyondeastrod2018edition.blogspot.com/
My reading is hit and miss too so we belong to the same club this year. Good to “see” you again, Tim!
Wow! Quite an achievement. What is this classics club? Are you given a list and a dead line to read and review the books you chose? Sounds very interesting. I’m too scattered about to commit to something like that, but I like the idea. Congratulations!
You can find them at theclassicsclubblog.wordpress.com In addition to “the list” they have other challenges, resources and other goodies. Please check them out!
Five years goes by so fast, doesn’t it? But, yep, that’s basically what I did with my first list…only I didn’t learn my lesson for the second. Oops. Looking forward to your second list!
It was a little boring putting the same books on another list but I had to stay focussed and realistic. So I’m looking forward to starting the new list in spite of it.
That 5 yrs has flown by hasn’t it? And I had to do the same with my first cc list – I had over 150 titles on my list – after 5 yrs I’d read 68, so I drew a line under the first 65 and started cc list 2 with the leftovers.
It felt very satisfying – so congrats!
Love the new look site as well – clean and classy.
The years certainly do go too fast! I’m so happy to join the 2nd list-makers. Now let’s see what I can do with it. 🙂
Just leaving a test comment to see how this all works out.
Hope it works out for you…
Your comment came through loud and clear!
Well, I’m not having the glitches I had with Blogger but there’s certainly a learning curve. And all these plug-ins to get you what you need! Ugh! But I’m enjoying it so far.
Hmmm, well, I was never notified of your response. Let me make sure the tickmark is checked to be notified.
Getting all the kinks out. We’re both WordPress so HOPEFULLY it will be easier!
Ok, no notifications through email so far.
Try now. The button was on but it showed a lighter blue than the rest. I just turned it off and on and now it’s dark blue so see if it works.
I received a quick comment when I started this site; I’m not sure where it came from and am leery of spam. I was going to leave it pending but in deference to the commenter I will put it here.
Kasi Hainsworth said: “With having so much written content do you ever run into any problems of plagorism or copyright violation? My site has a lot of exclusive content I’ve either written myself or outsourced but it seems a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my authorization. Do you know any techniques to help prevent content from being stolen? I’d definitely appreciate it.”
My response: “Hi, Kasi. I have a copyright notice on the bottom of my blog. I can only hope that will deter people. On my food blog, I’ve registered with a site that checks if my photos are being used elsewhere. They apparently have a lawyer who will contact anyone who is using your photos and I’ve heard that helps tremendously deterring people who steal photos. As for written work, with this blog I’ve been more wanting to share my thoughts with others. While my reviews are my written property I haven’t been searching to see if they are being used elsewhere. I do notice that my reviews are checked for plagiarism on a regular basis so I assume perhaps students are looking to use my reviews for their work and want to know If I’ve plagiarized anything. But life is short. If I come across someone using my work, I will address it but my main goal is to start and be part of conversations about the Great Books. I hope that helps!